1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a system and method for planning a treatment procedure.
2. Discussion of Related Art
When planning a treatment procedure, clinicians often rely on patient data including X-ray data, computed tomography (CT) scan data, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, or other imaging data that allows the clinician to view the internal anatomy of a patient. The clinician utilizes the patient data to identify targets of interest and to develop strategies for accessing the targets of interest for the surgical procedure.
The use of CT images as a diagnostic tool has become routine and CT results are frequently the primary source of information available to a clinician regarding the size and location of a lesion, tumor or other similar target of interest. This information is used by the clinician for planning an operative procedure such as a biopsy or an ablation procedure, but is only available as “offline” information which must typically be memorized to the best of the practitioner's ability prior to beginning a procedure. CT images are typically obtained by digitally imaging a patient in slices in each of the axial, coronal and sagittal directions. A clinician reviews the CT image data slice by slice from each direction when attempting to identify or locate a target. It is often difficult, however, for the clinician to effectively plan a surgical ablation procedure based on the X-rays, CT images, or MRIs in their raw form.